Edgebanding "White Out" Problem
Dark edgebanding sometimes turns white at ends where it passes through the cutters. Applying heat will restore the color — but what's a fast way to do it? April 4, 2011
Question
I’m experiencing dark solid colored or woodgrain 3mm edgebanding white outs after passing through the top and bottom trimmers on our Brandt KD 90. We have found that by heating the banding once it has been applied by using a heat gun it brings back the dark color. This is very time consuming. Has anyone else had the problem and found a faster solution? This is not an edgebanding product issue because we have tried a number of different edgeband manufacturers to no avail.
Forum Responses
(Adhesives Forum)
From contributor K:
This is normal. Some banders have hot air blowers at their last station to re-activate the banding color. Heat gun by hand is your only option.
From contributor M:
The Holz-Her Sprint 1411 I used at a previous shop did not have a heat gun, but had two buffing wheels (I don't think they had any abrasive or wax, we never applied any such thing to them). We banded a lot of PVC 3mm band and it always looks beautiful. You might get lucky by mounting a buffing wheel on a drill and buffing them. If it works, I don’t know if it would be any faster than the heat gun. Perhaps just buy a more powerful heat gun to move things along quicker.
From contributor R:
The heat will bring the color back, but you should be able to adjust your fine trim to be a closer cut to the finish profile and then the scrapers will not have to remove as much material. If you remove too much material with the scraper 3mm tends to turn white.
From contributor M:
I have used a torch and it seemed to be pretty fast.
From contributor T:
A regular Burz-o-Matic torch might just be a good idea. I have used a torch for re-melting and glossing/smoothing the cut edge of clear acrylic sheets.
From contributor E:
When I had a machine that did not have all the heaters and buffers, I noticed that if the cutting knives were adjusted properly and were sharp the edge came out acceptable. If the cutting knife was dull or out of adjustment the edge scrapers had to remove excess and this caused the white color on the edges. Also the torch works great as long as you have a guy with steady hands.
